This is just a "not quite" daily update from me about the family, about my crafts, and life in general. Hope you'll come visit often. What I'd really love to know though is .... So, how was your day?

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Where Two Blog Posts Collide ~ Part One

Isn't that just a lovely picture? It's a camel cricket ~ or more commonly known around these parts as spider crickets. Which ever you call them, they are the bane of my existence. They live in my basement and I am NOT happy about it. At first there was just one, Honey killed it. A couple of days later there was another one, Nate came and took it away.

We still had tons of boxes in the basement aka my sewing room. Guess who likes to hide under boxes? Yep ~ saw several of them under the boxes, some stuck to the underside of the tape. I'm not a fan of bugs of any sort really but these things really really creep me out. They can jump up to 10 feet. The good news is they don't see very well. The bad news is that they jump TOWARDS a perceived enemy.

I've done some research on these nasty insects and it says they are harmless. Now, if one of these things jump on me and I have a heart attack ~ are they really harmless? I think not!

I was on a mission to get rid of these things. My first mistake was looking up info on them. I ended up on a discussion board reading hundreds of horror stories about these things. Talk about nightmares! The advice I read ran from bug bombs, sprays, sticky pads, and the ever popular Bugzooka. Actually Richard ordered me a Bugzooka but it's going back ~ you pretty much have to get right on top of the damn bug to "humanely" catch it. First of all, I'm not getting that close to one of these things and secondly I really don't give a crap about being humane! There was also something about some weird fruit that naturally repels them but I had never heard of that. I did consider a cat though. Says cat's love to eat them ~ eww!

So off to the store I went. I bought bug bombs ~ yes bombS. I got spray for the outside of the house that says it kills both spiders and crickets so killing spider crickets should be no problem. Got some sticky pads too. Guy at the store said I looked like I was ready for battle.

The bug bombs worked really really well ~ but it was a bit disturbing finding upwards of 20 dead crickets. We also sprayed around the house and put out the sticky traps. Unfortunately a little over a week later we started finding a few again. In the mean time I got rid of all the boxes in the basement ~ felt good to get them unpacked ~ less places for those demons to hide too. We think they are coming in from one of the windows so we put lots of sticky pads in the window and it seems to be working for now.

I've actually started sewing again in the basement ~ without fear of being jumped on. And the good news is, I haven't seen a cricket in a couple of weeks now.. wanna know how we did it? You'll have to tune in for the next blog post to find out!

3 comments:

Grandma Judy
said...

Barb, get Nate to catch a little toad for you and put him in the basement. He will get very fat, but your crickets will disappear.My mother had one she was so fond of she named him "Homer." But no crickets, no BUGS of any kind as long as Homer patrolled the basement. So there's a little tip from Nate's Great Grandmother Hazel.

About Me

I am a 55 y/o Mom of Jen, Nate & Julz plus a few others I've picked up along the way~ mother-in-law (gasp) to Jeremy ~ a wife to my best friend Richard ~ grandmother to the most precious granddaughter in the world ~ a maker of quilts and handbags ~ a collector of fabric and all things flamingo!
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